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Minheldolath
Minheldolath (S. "Between the Bergs;" La. Hallamäet Meressä) was a large cold island in the Forogaer northwest of the ice-bay of forochel. Thrusted like a dividing wall into the heart of Forochel's bay, the peninsula of Minheldolath separated Berg Cradle Bay from Spouting Bay. Like Rast Losnaeth to its east, the isthmus was warmed by the surrounding waters. In addition, the natural barrier of the Ered Rhívamar protected the Minheldolath from many bitter northern storms. Along its eastern edge, the peninsula supported a low range of scrubby hills and rocky tors, while its western coastline lay flat and open. Spring and summer brought a gradual greening to the peninsula. The flatter western coast germinated and flowered like any tundra, while the rockier eastern hills were home to several species of berry-producing bushes and shrubs. With its slightly warmer weather and vegetation, the Minheldolath formed a virtual microcosm of Forochel. Its hilly eastern shores were home to a few snow bears, while its open western side supported small herds of reindeer and a few elk. While winter often decimated their numbers, enough survived to replenish the herds came spring. The entire peninsula was also home to snow hares and other innumerable small mammals. Birds flocked here in great number in the spring to breed and lay eggs. For the sheer amount of its food stocks, the Minheldolath was populated year-round by Jäämiehet and Merimetsästäjät, the former living in established villages, the latter maintaining their nomadic life between their berg-delvings and the shore. Small, well-tended, Jäämies settlements were found the length and breadth of Minheldolath, subsisting on hunting, gathering and fishing. Few boasted more than a hundred souls. The villages were constructed in typical Jäämies fashion: solid, roomy, sealskin tents in summer, the traditional pyöreä talo in winter. The villagers traded year-round with their Merimetsästäjä neighbors and, seasonally throughout the spring and summer, with those Lumimiehet who ventured onto the Cape of Forochel. In summer, the villages were alive with trade, marriages and feasts. In winter, the little hamlets were the only local source for food and supplied for anyone wandering in the region. Camps established along the Minheldolath (often little more than a collection of sealskin lean-to's in summer and one or two pyöreä talot in winter) were primarily those of the hunters and gatherers of the berg-dwelling Merimetsästäjät. These camps were highly mobile, and could appear or disappear at the whim of the hunters, and travelers could not expect to find them again once they had left, as the hunters would surely have moved on. The camps had a high turnover rate of occupants, as hunters went from or returned to their delvings in the Berg Cradle. These hunters traveled light and had little to spare. They were, however, well-acquainted with the locations of all the Jäämies villages, and could guide a desperate wanderer there. The eastern shoreline of Minheldolath was rocky and inaccessible in many places, but its western coast sported open, pebblecovered beaches. It was here that seals came to lie in the sun and doze. At high summer, cooperation between two deadly groups of hunters led to a bloody slaughter on these beaches, as the log of a Cardolanian whaler, the Gwathló Dancer, reported: :The teurastajan takes place only once a year in mid to late summer, when the :majority of seal pups have been weaned. The grisly deed supplies the Jäämiehet :with all the skins and meat they need for the coming winter. Nothing is :wasted—even the seals' bones are carved into jewelry or sharpened to serve as :tools or weapons. The bones may also be ground into a fine meal and :boiled to make a kind of weatherproofing for the sealskin tents of the :Jäämiehet or, when the glue is applied thickly, to rigidify soft leather into :armor. The Jäämiehet were appalled when, having viewed their teurastajan, '' :''a band of Arthadanian sealhunters did likewise, but took only the :skins, leaving the remains to rot on the shore. From that time onward, the :Jäämiehet have forcibly put a stop to anyone attempting to emulate the :''teurastajan. '' category:region category:MERP category:Forochel